April 07, 2004

Mosquerade

After the insurgents holed up in the mosque struck a humvee vehicle with an RPG, lightly wounding five soldiers, the marines opted for their heavy weaponry.

First a warplane fired off guns, then a Cobra helicopter shot off a Hellfire missile at the mosque and finally an aircraft dropped a laser-guided precision bomb, Byrne said.

The roar of jets shook the city, caught in the midst of a brutal urban battle pitting the marines against the insurgents who have bled the coalition forces for months and ambushed and mutilated four US contractors last week.

Byrne said the marines carried out the raid as precisely as they could because there are people living nearby. Marines also came under RPG fire from guerrillas in a second mosque on

The head of the Marines First Division, General James Mattis, defended the attack, warning if rebels used places of worship in their war against US forces, his troops would not hesitate to strike them at sacred sites.

"If they barricade themselves inside a mosque, we are not going to care about the mosque anymore than they do," Mattis said. [Emphasis added]